Software applications are known in the art for implementing telephony features using a personal computer. According to existing First Party Call Control architectures, a physical connection is provided between the telephone and personal computer for providing Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Such prior art CTI architectures have suffered from extreme limitations in functionality and ease of use. For example, in order to place a phone call, a user typically must first close or minimize whatever application he or she is currently running (eg. Microsoft Word.RTM.), open the CTI application, enter the digits to be dialled via point-and-click numbers, and then click an accept or dial button. Alternatively, according to some CTI architectures, the user is able to navigate or browse a telephone directory in order to identify the party to be called and then, once located, highlight the party's name and click a dial button.
Understandably, the awkwardness of using such systems and the limited features provided thereby have led some consumers to abandon prior art CTI systems in favour of more functional telephone sets or even "plain old telephone sets" (POTS) with enhanced features being provided by the central office.
One of the reasons for the awkwardness and limited functionality of prior art CTI architectures is that there is no seamless integration of functions activated by the telephone and functions activated directly or indirectly by the computer.
Recent developments in the standardization of computer interfaces have led to increased development of software applications which are adapted to integrate functionality of a personal computer with various and diverse external devices. For example, the recently established standard for USB (Universal Serial Bus-a 12 Mbit/s serial interface running over a four wire bus, with an associated software stack supporting peripheral connectivity to a personal computer) is expected to yield a raft of software applications which interact cooperatively with external devices ranging from video games to faxes and data modems.
An object of the present invention is to provide an interactive telephone and PC-based software application which will overcome the limitations of prior art CTI architectures and be compatible with emerging standardized interfaces such as USB.